The first thing to note about issue 24 of Same Old is it’s dizzying cover, which takes the form of a screen desktop layered with hundreds of screenshots – a digital scrapbook of skateboarding magazines and other ephemera, created by RayGun veteran David Carson. Inside its pages reflect this scrapbookishness; the magazine is dense with relics from across skateboard culture’s history.

The issue opens with part of an English National Skateboard Association newsletter that both celebrates and defends skateboarding (above); it acknowledges the strength of the international skateboarding community, and fiercely argues against the notion that skateboarding is dead. This opening statement roots itself in the constant evolution of the British skateboarding community, tracing the movement from its initial hype in the late 70s, and cementing the magazine’s focus on skateboarding’s rich history.

A stream-of-consciousness approach continues through the issue; this is not a streamlined piece of editorial flatplanning. A fitting tribute to the much missed writer and cultural scholar Gary Warnett, featuring one of his articles on skateboarding’s cannibalization of the footwear market, is one of the more treditionally formatted peices. There is also a 1984 Tony Hawk interview, fan photos and letters sent to John Lucero in the 1980s, and Tony Alva’s photographs of London teenagers skateboarding in 1978 (above).

A profile from Rolling Stone magazine of the late ‘King of Texas skateboarding’ Jeff Phillips is reproduced, the lo-res layout seemingly lifted from a website (below). Stuart Maclure brings things forward into the modern age, in his article exploring the impact of the restoration of the Southbank undercroft.

Same Old is a beautifully put together celebration of this diverse, enduring community.

07.02.19

Looking forward to the whole thing; meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from Jill Abramson’s book ‘Merchants of Truth,’ alongside which this 2015 confrontation between NYTimes’ David Carr and Vice executives is worth another look.

While Vice and co continue staff cuts, back at the NYTimes, they’ve just reported digital revenue for 2018 of $709m.